Of course not. But now I knew she was capable of protecting herself. Of protecting our children when they came. She would do whatever it took to save them.
"I've got to get Isa home," I said, glancing at the clock to see the late hour. She needed sleep, and it was already well past midnight. I looked over at the kitchen island where she'd been sitting and talking to Martina to find her gone. With a furrow to my brow, I stood and made my way over to my aunt. "Where's Isa?" I asked.
"She went to the bathroom a few minutes ago," she said, pointing her finger down the hall. I followed her gaze, moving around the corner. I saw Isa immediately.
She stood in the hallway, a picture frame in her hand that she'd pulled off the wall. I furrowed my brow, stepping up behind her as she blinked at it with something like shock on her face.
"Do you know this man?" she asked, her voice barely a whisper as she pointed to the only man in the photo. He stood with my mother and I, one of the only portraits of us as a family before her death.
After his death, I'd gotten rid of all the evidence of him from my home. I wanted nothing to do with Miguel Ibarra. I never wanted to look at his face again.
So why did Isa look as if she'd seen a ghost?
"That's my father," I admitted, taking the photo from her hands. I stared down at my mother's hesitant smile, at the signs of the abuse she'd already begun to suffer at my father's hands as his sanity faded away and he was lost to the intense paranoia that consumed him. He'd never been a good man or husband, but there was bad and then there was worse.
"Your father?" she whimpered.
I hung it back on the wall, turning back to Isa when I realized she hadn't moved except to stare up at the picture as her cheeks grew wet with sudden tears.
"Princesa?" I asked, catching her chin with a delicate finger and forcing her to look at me. "What's wrong?"
There was a pause as she stared at me, blinking back the tears that consumed her. Her breathing turned ragged, as if she was caught in a waking nightmare.
"That's him," she whispered. "That's the man who threw me in the river."
Rafael & Isa’s story continues in Until Retribution Burns. Coming April 30th!
>>Pre-Order Now.
Fall in love with a Bellandi? You can find Matteo, Ryker, and Enzo’s stories in Adelaide’s Bellandi Crime Syndicate series.
>>Start with Bloodied Hands.
Also by Adelaide Forrest
Bellandi World Syndicate Universe
Bellandi Crime Syndicate Series
Bloodied Hands
Forgivable Sins
Grieved Loss
Shielded Wrongs
Beauty in Lies Series
Until Tomorrow Comes
Until Forever Ends
Until Retribution Burns - Coming soon
Until Death Do Us Part - Coming soon
Insta-Love Novellas
The Men of Mount Awe Series
Deliver Me from Evil
Kings of Conquest - Cowritten with Lyric Cox
Claiming His Princess
Stealing His Princess
